


Your Kiss Is Like a Lost Ghost

by WednesdaysDaughter



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, M/M, Past Lives, Reincarnation, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-08
Updated: 2015-05-08
Packaged: 2018-03-29 13:25:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3897970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WednesdaysDaughter/pseuds/WednesdaysDaughter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a series of events too bizarre to believe, Stiles blames his inability to immediately recognize Derek on the recent discovery of lycanthropy.</p><p>“It is total bullshit that I’m just now finding out that werewolves are a thing!” Stiles seethes to himself, patting his Jeep consolingly as if she could agree. “I’ve lived in so many places that could’ve passed for Dracula’s lair and none of them had been inhabited by supernatural creatures. I can’t even recall a haunting and I’m older than most – if not all – known apparitions!”.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Kiss Is Like a Lost Ghost

**Author's Note:**

> This fic actually started after I head Alpha Rev's song "Sing Loud" and it was really used to inspire the WWII moment at the end of the fic. However, I've always adored Ke$ha's "Past Lives" and felt it was finally time to write a fic to it and TA-DA! I love reincarnation!fics. Honestly, I just love the idea of reincarnation and I fell like with most of my favorite ships (Stiles/Derek, Merlin/Arthur, Spock/Kirk, Bilbo/Thorin etc.) it's a great prompt to play with. Here's hoping I did this troupe some justice.

_The room is cold, almost like the windows were left open overnight and the frost crept in, expect there are bars on this window, preventing both its opening and your escape._

_There are four unfriendly white walls and a solid gray door that slams into place whenever they come and go. The bumps on your arms and legs seem permanent and no matter how much you rub your small hands over your skin you can’t get warm. Your dress isn’t white anymore, not after tossing and turning on the dirt floor as the light from the waning moon provided you little comfort._

_You missed your bed and your hound Max who would lick your face in the morning. You missed your brother Alex even though he cried in the middle of the night and threw his spoons at you. You even missed your parents who looked at you in horror after you told them about your dreams; your memories._

_They sent you here._

_The door creeks open and you curl into the corner when you see is face. You want to go home, you don’t belong here, and you want him to leave you alone. He laughs over your mantra and when the door slams shut, no one hears your screams._

\- - - - - - - - - -

Stiles flies out of bed, flailing around until he’s trapped in his sheets and then tumbles onto the floor still screaming.

The red numbers on the alarm clock are the first thing he sees when he opens his eyes and it is 11:45 on a Friday night and he is safe. Thankfully his dad isn’t due home for another fifteen minutes and that’s how long it takes Stiles to calm down and sort everything out in his brain.

“That’s a memory I could’ve lived without,” he mutters to his empty room.

Running his hands over his eyes, Stiles takes a deep breath and the reaches for a notebook underneath his pillow and begins to write until he hears his dad trek upstairs. He doesn’t breathe until the steps pass his room without hesitation and he hears a door shut down the hall. Quietly breathing out, Stiles turns back to the half-full page and continues to write until satisfied.

Stashing the notebook back where it belonged, Stiles stands and stretches, wincing at the pull in his lower back before hopping into bed for few hours of fitful sleep. He tosses and turns until he can’t bear it longer and Stiles makes breakfast for him and his dad at five in the morning before rushing off to class; leaving a worried Sheriff behind.

The only way Stiles can tell the dreams from memories is the lack of color.

Dreams are always filled with vibrant hues whereas memories are washed and faded like an old photograph tucked away in an attic. It’s something than never changes when everything else does. They start coming back when he’s six and they don’t end until they’re ready to. Some nights Stiles doesn’t wake up with a new – or rather old – memory, other nights Stiles is four different people before calling in sick because it takes him some time to remember who he is this lifetime.

After a while, he stopped questioning it.

Even after he figured out that most people didn’t believe in reincarnation, let alone actually live it repeatedly, he didn’t delve too deeply into the mystery as to why him: Or, why her as the case was many, many times.

Stiles also learned the hard way not to bring up the memories to his parents. After dying in an insane asylum at the tender age of twelve, young Murat Bitarov decided to keep his memories to himself in fear of reliving Sally Cannon’s fate.

However, Stiles Stilinski slips up.

Excited about the first day of kindergarten, Stiles’ mouth is running a mile a minute and his mind is trying to catch up. Under the smile of his mother, his secret comes pouring out.

“And, and, I’m really happy because I had my first memory about Mac last night! It was only for a moment though, just before we went to war, but I’m still happy I got it back.”

When the smile slips off his mother’s face, Stiles realized what he had said and slapped his hands over his mouth so quick it had stung. It was his very first panic attack and only his mother’s whispered assurances that everything was alright and of course she wouldn’t send him away made Stiles calm down enough to assure her that, “Is was only a dream Mom, I’m sorry.”

Stiles never made the mistake of talking about Mac again or of Beth, or Daniel even though that’s all he had wanted to do. Some mornings he would catch his mother looking at him, curiosity alight in her golden eyes, but never fear.

Slowly, but surely the years sailed by and Stiles grew into his lanky limbs inch by painful inch.

The memories come like a hurricane after his mother dies, frail and cold in a hospital bed. He’d loved many parents before Claudia Stilinski, but as she’s lowered into the ground Stiles vows to fight tooth and nail to keep her face at the front of his mind no matter how many different skins he wears in the future.

Her death hit Stiles like a shell. “Which is funny,” Stiles muses to himself, “considering I got myself blown to pieces in the war.”

\- - - - - - - - - -

_The crops are dead and your people are starving._

_Your allies have realized how weak you are and troops are on the march to take your castle and kill you where you stand. You’ve sent Sophia and the children away with a group of your most trusted men to seek refuge in the church beyond the hills. They will be safe there, or so you pray as you’re armed for battle._

_“You needn’t fight my lord.”_

_“What sort of king sends his men to die when he will not do the same? Do you think me a coward Cedric?”_

_“Of course not! You are my King and I think the highest of you. However, I would not see you die if I can help it.”_

_You turn to face your Knight Commander and your dearest friend since you were a child running though stone hallways battling dragons. Sir Cedric served your father and his loyalty proved unending as he pledged his sword to you when you took the throne._

_“Then I shall not die, my friend and neither shall you.”_

_His face softens and it is your vows to your wife that keep you from touching him, kissing him the way you’ve wanted to since you entered manhood._

_The following battle blurs before your eyes as blood runs down your forehead and obscures your vision just long enough for the enemy to land a fatal blow. The last thing you hear is Cedric’s cry, calling your name over and over until he too falls silent._

_It is never the right time, but at least you’ll die together._

_That’s never happened before._

\- - - - - - - - - -

Like most things in Stiles’ long existence, a dead body manages to ruin the status quo carefully crafted through experience and practice. It is also Stiles’ fault, like it was 150 years ago, but seeing as he’s the only one who knows that, it doesn’t count – or so he tells himself as Laura Hale’s torso stares unseeing up at him.

In a series of events too bizarre to believe, Stiles blames his inability to immediately recognize Derek on the recent discovery of lycanthropy.

“It is total bullshit that I’m just now finding out that werewolves are a thing!” Stiles seethes to himself, patting his Jeep consolingly as if she could agree. “I’ve lived in so many places that could’ve passed for Dracula’s lair and none of them had been inhabited by supernatural creatures. I can’t even recall a haunting and I’m older than most – if not all – known apparitions!”

As Stiles is threatened, paralyzed, beaten, nearly killed, and possessed he realizes that if he had known about the supernatural sooner he might have lived a lot more lives because there is no way he would’ve survived a nogitsune back in the highlands of 1836. Granted death by demon possession might have been a nicer way to die than a public burning.

“Once a witch, always a witch,” Stiles sighs.

It’s not until things quiet down that Stiles allows himself to come to terms with what he realized somewhere between kanimas and beserkers.

Derek Hale was Mac.

Well, he was Mac and Beth and Cedric and every other person Stiles fell in love with too late. Their ages didn’t match up, someone was married or wasn’t attracted to the sex the other was. During one memorable cycle Stiles watched as Derek was dragged out of the pub and beaten in the street just for fancying men. Safe to say their lives during 1792 wasn’t much better either, what with Stiles on the run and Derek working for his owner.

Derek was once his doctor, helpless to watch as disease ravaged Stiles’ body until he begged Derek to end his suffering. An angel of mercy in one life, a pirate in another, they never hurt each other if they could help it.

The cycles where Derek didn’t remember were the worst.

Every time, without fail, Stiles regains his memories and even when he gives up, they met at the very end. A cruelness that Stiles has begun to desire the closer he gets to the end of each life. As Martha, Stiles lost Daniel when they were just kids and found him again as Michael, the sweet boy next door who mowed her lawn after her husband passed away.

Those were the most painful years of Stiles’ life, to lose him twice and see no recognition in Michael’s eyes. He didn’t even fight death like he had tried to do so many instances before. Lying in bed at the age of seventy-three, Martha Jones closed her eyes and woke up in time for the draft of WWII as Benjamin “Benny” Murdock.

\- - - - - - - - - -

_The plane shimmies and you grip the armrest until your knuckles turn white._

_“Nervous flier?”_

_You shot the woman next to you a quick smile and take a deep breath. Truth is you love flying, but you don’t care for taking off._

_“Don’t worry, that’ll be me in a little while. I hate landing.”_

_A laugh punches through your sealed lips and hers is equally loud. It relaxes you, feels familiar like the perfect cup of cocoa with chili pepper your babushka made you decades ago. Before you can reply, the plane shakes violently and suddenly a sharp turn morphs into a roll and all you can hear are people screaming and you know your voice is one of them._

_A hand grabs yours and as the plane rights itself long enough to see straight you turn to look at the woman next to you and it’s like you’ve always known her._

_“Of course,” you sob when the plane pitches down and the screaming fades in and out as she pulls your hand to her lips._

_“We need to work on our timing,” she yells and you can’t see her green eyes anymore because you know you’re both going to die and your tears sting worse than they ever have before. Fresh out of college, you were ready to take on New York and the world of high fashion. Ariana Brooke had big dreams and none of them mattered anymore because you were going to die, but at least she’s here with you._

_You’re getting closer with each life._

\- - - - - - - - -

The problem with flat-out asking Derek if he knows who Stiles is isn’t one that’s occurred to him before now. However, as Stiles watches Derek unpack a box of books in his new, death-free, apartment in Chicago, it occurs to him that Derek’s always know and maybe he hasn’t said anything because he’s done with this – with them.

They’ve been playing this heartbreaking game of cat-and-mouse for so long that maybe Derek’s suffered enough in this life and he isn’t willing to suffer more.

Stiles can’t even blame him; he’s tired too.

A hole opens up in Stiles’ chest and it’s hard to breathe and swallow around the lump in his throat. His cheeks feel unbearably warm and Stiles silently curses as a tear breaks free and rolls down his face, splashing quietly on the wooden floor. Derek looks up sharply, but before he can say anything, Stiles turns and bolts out the door and down three flights of stairs. He’s not even a block away before Derek’s pulling on his arm and guiding him out of the way of busy pedestrians.

“Stiles what…?” but Stiles doesn’t let him finish.

“Don’t, I’m fine just give me a second.”

He tries to break free of Derek’s grip, which makes Derek’s frown deepen and it’s all too much because Stiles knows that look. Yes, he’s seen it so many times on Derek’s face, but also on Mac’s and Cedric’s and he’s always been a grumpy sort in every life apparently. Stiles remembers every fight and it feels inevitable like the rising tides and killer earthquakes. He doesn’t want to fight on the street though, they’ve done that too many times to count.

Without a word, Stiles jerks his head and Derek just stares until Stiles starts back to the apartment. It’s not until Derek locks the door behind them that Stiles laughs, loud and slightly hysteric like that night in Germany with trees exploding and people screaming for a medic. Things never really change; they never really change.

“I know you know so yeah, forgive me while I try to compartmentalize the fact my soul mate wants nothing to do with me in this life.”

His words are sharp and hang in the air, suffocating them both until Derek growls and the spell is broken.

“Is that what you think?”

Stiles turns and his anger tastes like ashes on his tongue and maybe this is why they always die; because they don’t fit enough to get a happy ending. Maybe they die to spare themselves the breakup, the divorce, the souring love.

“How can I think anything different Derek?”

“Why didn’t you say anything to me?” Derek snaps back and Stiles shakes his head, hands vibrating with the desire to break something.

“I asked you first asshole. All this time, what since the preserve? Before then? Christ Derek, were you ever going to tell me?”

Stiles’ voice breaks and he feels like he’s bleeding out on the floor, gut so heavy he want to cut it out and throw it at Derek. The sound of ragged breaths are all Stiles can hear, but he knows Derek can hear his pounding heart and the hitch in his throat and he’s so done with all of this he just wants to start over if it means it’ll hurt less.

“You promised,” he whispers defeated and Derek’s across the room and holding Stiles before he can blink.

“I found you when I was ten and you were so little. I took one look at you and knew instantly what you were to me, but I couldn’t tell anyone. Werewolves? Sure. Reincarnated soul mates? Even my mother would’ve laughed.”

Stiles presses his ear to Derek’s heart as if he could detect a lie, but he knows without any extra senses that Derek’s telling the truth. It hurts too much to be a lie. Derek nuzzles Stiles’ forehead and presses a gentle kiss there before speaking again.

“You were the one thing I never told Kate. Deep down I think I knew what she was and I wouldn't risk losing so soon after finding you. After New York, after Laura I was a mess Stiles – you commented on that fact a lot. I was in no condition to tell you and as ready as you thought you were, you weren’t either. We get so desperate Stiles, we get so blind sighted that it ends before we get a chance to say ‘hello’ and I couldn’t… I couldn’t go through that again.”

“You still could’ve said something,” Stiles pouts and Derek’s laugh shakes them both.

“Would you have listened if I asked you to take it slow?”

Stiles’ lack of a reply is answer enough for both of them.

“Okay, but what about after everything? After the nogitsune and Kate… why did you leave again without telling me?”

Stiles pulls away to watch Derek grimace.

“Well, I sort of thought we were… cursed,” Derek mumbles and if Stiles hadn’t thought that very same thing every night since he found Derek he would’ve laughed.

“I felt like if we acknowledged it that we’d die, or you’d die and I’d be stuck here without you and after everything – that would’ve done me in: For good.”

Stiles can’t find the words, so he leans in and kisses Derek for the first time in over fifty years and it’s even better than he remembers. Derek’s hands are warm on his back, pulling him as close as he can as Stiles hands roam up his arms and over his neck to tangle in Derek’s hair. They kiss until the room turns orange with a setting sun casting long shadows on the floor and illuminating specks of dust dancing in the air.

Stiles pulls away, resting his forehead against Derek’s only to have his whisper swallowed by hungry lips.

“I found you.”

\- - - - - - - - - -

_“I don’t think we’re gonna make that dance Ben,”_

_You fire a shot and watch the German front get closer and closer to your foxhole. Your platoon is a third of what it was two weeks ago and half of you are slowly dying of infection since the medic was blown to bits._

_“You are one pessimistic bastard Mac, ya know that?” you bark over your shoulder before taking out four guys on the frontline._

_“Just one of my many shortcomings,” Mac crows and you laugh so hard your helmet shakes. You can hear Lt. Wilson in the foxhole three feet behind yours yelling at you to quit gabbing and keep shooting._

_“Sir, yes sir!” you and Mac shout and if you hadn’t been busy killing German soldiers, you would’ve saluted the jackass just to piss him off._

_“Your mouth is gonna get you killed one day,” Mac slides in next to you and gets a guy coming in from your left that you didn’t see._

_“Pretty sure they’re gonna kill us first Mac.”_

_“Now who’s the pessimist?”_

_The soldiers ahead start shouting and when a tank emerges over the hill you both swear so violently your mothers’ would’ve fainted and then boxed your ears ‘til they bled._

_“Well, it’s been real Mac,” you say, lowering your gun as Lt. Wilson calls “fall back!” even though it’s pointless. You are the first defense; there is nowhere you can safely fall back to, even if you could._

_“I’m getting real sick of this shit,” Mac spits and suddenly you’re being pulled into the roughest kiss of your life._

_“That’s a hell of a goodbye.”_

_Your lips are tingling and your eyes sting from the smoke and you can just make out the kaleidoscope colors of Mac’s eyes before he leans in and rests his helmet against yours. His blood coasts the bottom of your foxhole and suddenly the tank’s boom fills the air as Mac clings to your broken arm._

_“I will find you.”_

_“Promise?”_

_“I will always find you.”_

**Author's Note:**

> I am not gonna lie, the WWII flashback made me think a lot of 1. Band of Brothers and 2. Steve/Bucky and I feel really good about those things. I actually did think a lot about BoB before I even started writing this because I draw a lot of inspiration from the accounts of Easy Company. So if I ever write heavy war scenes for Steve/Bucky or any other ship in an AU scenario, it's likely I'm sort of pulling ideas from BoB. 
> 
> I also got really emotional as I wrote each flashback and them finally coming together really got to me so I'm like really tired right now, but so pumped to go out and read more reincarnation fics.
> 
> I hope y'all enjoyed this hot mess of feelings and whatnot.


End file.
